Always Yours
by islerum
Summary: "Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot
1. Chapter 1

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

Bella sleeps on her side. She sleeps the best when her back is pressed against the wall, one hand under the pillow and the other wrapped up in the edge of the blanket. Paul has a twin bed but when they were little she fit perfectly between him and the wall.

Tonight, he comes home and she's already there, asleep and sad-looking. So her mom is drunk again…or one of the boyfriends is over. He flips the light off and changes in the dark, careful, quiet, and then slides in beside her and fixes the blanket around her face just the way she likes it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

Growing up, Bella's favorite dinners at Emily's were always the ones when Jake stayed. He was tall and he was the best at 7 Minutes in Heaven.

Jared was sloppy and Quil was grabby.

Paul never played. "This is dumb," he'd say. "If you're only there for 7 minutes, it ain't heaven," and then he'd grab whatever girl wasn't annoying him that week and take her out in the backyard and kiss her up against the side of the garage all afternoon.

Jake never pushed her up against a wall but he was the first boy that really kissed her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

It's September but the heat of August is hanging on. Bella's wearing cut-offs, a tank top fraying at the hem, and dark black shades. She's hung over and sitting very still in the front seat of Paul's car waiting impatiently for the black coffee he'd promised ten minutes ago when he'd called to wake her up.

She thinks that she would feel better if they were going to the beach today or the mall or Seattle or really anywhere but their first day of their junior year – back to Forks High, homework, and another year of being invisible.


	4. Chapter 4

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

Jake's hands are always warm and he splays his fingers across Bella's stomach as she reaches over her head to hang up the pictures she's working on.

"What's up?" she asks, laughing and he pulls her close to his hips. She feels his breath against her ear when he whispers. "You know."

She drops the picture. He does this thing with his tongue. She lets her head fall back against his shoulder then he's turning her around, lifting her up on the counter.

She likes kissing him because he knows what to do with his tongue. He's quiet. He's not complicated.


	5. Chapter 5

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

She'd had Jessica Stanley on the ground, was going to kick her ass but Paul had come out of nowhere and dragged her out of the crowd.

Now she's fighting with him.

"I was looking out for you."

"You were looking out for your precious girlfriend's face."

"She isn't my girlfriend."

"I forgot, she doesn't talk to you in public."

"That's rich, Bella. You wanna talk about slumming?"

"You're unbelievable. At least he knows who I am, knows where I'm from. You're such a hypocrite. He's your best friend."

"Nah Bella, that's you," he says quietly, like he's admitting defeat.


	6. Chapter 6

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

"You do this with other guys?" he asks between kisses. "I'm just asking."

She props herself on her elbow. "Would it matter if I did?"

He looks away and she reaches under his t-shirt, traces lines on his stomach until he stops her. "I'm just wondering…"

She smiles. There is no jealousy in his voice…he's just curious…always likes to know the score.

"Well I don't belong to anybody, do I? You gonna give me a reason why I shouldn't?

Jake pushes her down onto his pillow then and his mouth is covering hers, kissing her, giving her a hundred reasons.


	7. Chapter 7

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

Things they don't talk about are their dead fathers, their drunk mothers, and how they'd die for each other. They would run across the waterfront under a hail of bullets or off a cliff if it meant the other made it home safe.

Lately, it's him fucking Jessica Stanley that they don't talk about. They don't talk about how every time he's inside of her, perfect princess Jessica, with her long red fuck-me fingernails scraping skin from his back, he buries his face in her long brown hair and pretends he's somewhere else.

They don't talk about that.


	8. Chapter 8

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

It doesn't matter what else is going on, Sundays everyone is washed up and at the long table in Emily's backyard for dinner by five. It's a noisy affair with laughter and talking and fourteen pairs of hands reaching for hamburgers and hot dogs and chocolate cake for dessert and Emily trying to get a sense of what her "kids" have going on in the coming week.

Everyone is accounted for today but Paul and Bella are sitting at opposite ends of the table, and there's an uneasy tension in the yard that no one is talking about.


	9. Chapter 9

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

She starts the shower and stands in the steam until the water runs cold. When she goes back to her bedroom her skin is raw and red.

She falls asleep not looking at the picture of them on the table by her bed, though the image is burned in her brain and it's all she sees when she closes her eyes – them standing in front of her dad's patrol car on their first day of kindergarten, her crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out while Paul pulls on one of her long pigtails and tries hard to look tough.


	10. Chapter 10

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

The kids take turns smacking the piñata, each blindfolded, spun, and crazed for candy. Bella is cheering the loudest of all the older kids, shouting encouragements. No outsider would think she belonged here in the middle of this party but her laughter tells a different story.

Paul catches her eye and waves. She smiles. A truce, maybe?

And then the moment is over because Jake is there, a blindfold for Bella's eyes, putting the bat in her hands, spinning her and kissing her like it's nothing, guiding her hands toward the stupid unicorn and it's mocking smile.


	11. Chapter 11

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

It was 87 steps from his porch to hers the summer they were seven. Paul knows because they counted…on the second day that the movers carried furniture into the tiny house and her mom said that it was okay if she played outside because she had a headache and she wanted to sleep.

They ate ice cream from the ice cream truck and caught a lizard that day and talked about how they didn't have daddies anymore and they counted the steps from his porch to hers.

It was 87 seven-year-old steps that day…but now it feels like more.


	12. Chapter 12

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

"You know we all had crushes on you when we were little, right?"

She can feel Jake staring at her. She focuses on the snag in the dashboard cover of his dad's car.

"Paul always told us not to mess with you, that you were one of us."

She shakes her head. "He should mind his own business," she says, reaching for him, pulling him in for a kiss.

He stops her. "Bella, you know I'd never hurt you, right?"

He won't kiss her and she knows what's coming.

"You don't want to be with me," he says quietly.


	13. Chapter 13

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

She's sitting on his bed in sweats and her eyes are small and tired from crying.

"He says I wanna be with you."

He looks away. She knows then they aren't going to talk about it.

"You staying?" he asks, sitting on the bed next to her and when she nods, he flips the light out and tucks himself in beside her.

Minutes pass and he whispers her name in the dark but she is quiet, pretending to sleep.

He kisses her forehead, then says, "I'm sorry." She knows from his breath on her face that he is watching her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

When he was little, Bella was the perfect girl. She'd hide her braids under a baseball cap, put on a t-shirt, cut-off jeans, and beat-up Chuck Taylors and hit home-runs in the park. She could spit and she could fight and she wasn't afraid and she never cried.

And she was his. He always thought of her that way — his to trust, his to protect.

Lying beside her now as she cries over Jake makes him feel like that isn't true…like maybe he's been wrong all these years…that he doesn't know her anymore and she isn't his at all.


	15. Chapter 15

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

It's her birthday but he's giddier than she is.

"You ready?" he asks laughing and takes his hands from her eyes.

She looks from the bow tied, cherry red El Camino to him. She looks more shocked than anything and then she's laughing, throwing her arms around his neck and saying thank you over and over.

He kisses her.

She is still laughing when he finds her lips, a little clumsy at first which he's not used to but he has to do this, knows it now.

She stops laughing. It fades into a moan and she's kissing him back like it was her idea.


	16. Chapter 16

**Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

He's getting into bed when he hears her voice at the end of the hall, calling good night to his grandmother.

She comes through the door smirking. "Mind if I crash tonight?" but he's already sliding over. She kisses him and crawls under the covers.

"You know you can crash here anytime."

"I love this smell," she says. "This room."

"You know your hair is everywhere in here…"

She straddles him, pulls the tank top she's wearing over her head.

"Oh yeah, crash here anytime."

"How long do you think we're going to get away with this?" she whispers between kisses.


	17. Chapter 17

_Happy Valentine's Day!_

* * *

 **Always Yours**

"Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it." – Meg Cabot

* * *

They sit in the bed of her car, their backs to the cab and their legs stretched out in front of them under a blanket he snagged as they were leaving the house.

"You cold?" he asks and she can feel him shift his body into hers as he slides an arm around her shoulder.

She reaches up for his hand, entangles all her fingers with his own and then again, concentrating on all the ways their two hands come together.

"I love you," he whispers in her ear.

"I love you too," she replies and leans up to capture his lips.


End file.
